The present disclosure relates to an electronic component, and more particularly, to a ceramic electronic component formed of ceramic material, and a method of manufacturing the same.
In general, electronic components using ceramic material such as capacitors, inductors, piezoelectric elements, varistors, and thermistors include a ceramic body formed of ceramic material, internal electrodes provided inside the ceramic body, and external electrodes installed on the surface of the ceramic body to be connected to the internal electrodes.
Among such ceramic electronic components, multilayer ceramic capacitors include a plurality of laminated dielectric layers, internal electrodes disposed to face each other with a dielectric layer interposed therebetween, and external electrodes electrically connected to the internal electrodes.
Multilayer ceramic capacitors are a widely-used component in mobile communications devices such as computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and mobile phones, due to their small size, high capacitance, and ease of mounting. As electronic products have become more compact and multi-functional, electronic components have also tended to become more compact and highly functional. Following this trend, a multilayer ceramic capacitor having a small size and high capacitance is required.
As for a general method of manufacturing the multilayer ceramic capacitor, ceramic green sheets are manufactured and a conductive paste is printed on the ceramic green sheets to thereby form internal electrode layers. Tens to hundreds of such ceramic green sheets, provided with the internal electrode layers, are then laminated to produce a green ceramic laminate. Thereafter, the green ceramic laminate is compressed at a high temperature and pressure to form a hard green ceramic laminate, and the hard green ceramic laminate is cut to manufacture a green chip. Then, the green chip is plasticized, sintered, and polished, and external electrodes are then formed thereon, thereby completing a multilayer ceramic capacitor.
The multilayer ceramic capacitor completed as described above is used in a state in which it is mounted on a wiring board. Nickel or tin plating is performed on surfaces of the external electrodes in order to easily mount the multilayer ceramic capacitor on the wiring board.
Particularly, in one method of manufacturing an electronic component, external electrodes are formed using copper (Cu), nickel (Ni) plating layers are formed on the external electrodes, and tin (Sn) plating layers are formed on the nickel plating layers. Here, the nickel plating layers are provided in order to prevent the copper configuring the external electrodes from being diffused to the tinplating layers and to increase heat resistance.
The nickel plating layers are generally formed through electroplating. In this case, a plating solution may permeate into the electronic component, or hydrogen gas may be generated when the plating is performed, and thus the reliability of the electronic component may be decreased. Therefore, in order to improve the reliability of the electronic component and simplify the process, the development of a method of manufacturing an electronic component in which plating is omitted is currently researched.